Review of Dark Passage (1947) by Ryan D — 07 Jun 2008

This film tells the story of a guy (Bogart) who escapes from prison. There's a lot more to it than that obviously but the rest is not necessary for the sake of this review. The plot is rather straightforward and decent. The whole plastic surgery part seemed a little odd since this takes place in 1947, but it was made in 1947 so plastic surgery must have existed back then. I wouldn't say this plot was all that great, but it still gets the job done.

The film stars Humphrey Bogart so how could you go wrong? Well they tried. Despite the fact he is the main character of the film, they hide him the first half of the movie by never showing his face - just his hands and voice. He gets a new face and is then bandaged up for a lot longer. There's some neat first-person perspective, but this is Humphrey Bogart, the best actor ever, why would you try and hide him? This is the first film of Lauren Bacall's I've seen and she wasn't bad. She's no Katharine Hepburn, but she didn't need to be.

Stylistically, this film is said to be a film noir. It has most of the required features, but didn't quite do it for me. It was lacking something. Too many scenes were too well-lit and the low-key lighting was lacking. Of course the film noir genre didn't exist until the film noir films had already been made so you can't really fault the film for not living up to the genre that only existed after all the films were made.

Overall, this is a solid picture, but not a great one. It's a must-see for a Bogart fan and far superior to Sabrina.

76/100.

C.

UP NEXT: Hitchcock's second-to-last film and the only one that was R-rated when it came out - Frenzy.